Stars Daily October 12: The Dallas Stars and the quest for 105

That’s how the Stars coach is defining special teams success this season. The power play percentage and the penalty kill percentage, when added together, need to be above 105 for the Dallas Stars head coach to be content.

Heading into the fourth game of the season it’s worked out so far. The Stars penalty kill has a success rate of 85.7 percent, while the power play is converting on 27.3 percent of it’s opportunities — that adds up to 113.

It’s still early and it’s been an extremely small sample size, so Hitchcock won’t be too excited at this point. But it is a sign that things are moving in the right direction for Dallas. Last season the Stars total number added up to 91.8, with a penalty kill at 73.9 percent and a power play at 17.9 percent.

Nemeth shining in Colorado

Everything this early in the season comes with a small sample size asterisk, but former Stars defender Patrik Nemeth has seized an opportunity with the Colorado Avalanche after getting claimed off of waivers.

In four games with the Avalanche Nemeth has three assists, is plus-7, and hasn’t taken a penalty playing on one of the top pairings in Colorado.

It’s an ideal setting for Nemeth, who wouldn’t have had that opportunity this season with Dallas.

The Avalanche were actually high on Nemeth last season, and had kicked around ideas of trading for the defender but never made the move. The Stars had hoped to trade Nemeth this season instead of losing him on waivers, but the Avalanche were confident the overall market had cooled for the defender and they could bring him in on a waiver claim when the Stars ultimately needed to trim a defender from the roster.

Housekeeping Notes

— The mailbag comes out tomorrow. You can get your questions in by asking on Twitter, commenting on reddit, or commenting on this post.

— The podcast returns later this week. Ryan’s schedule has gotten a bit hectic, so I have a guest co-host lined up and we are tentatively planning to record after the Stars practice Friday.

Today’s Schedule

The Stars are in Nashville for a game with the Predators. They are expected to use a similar lineup to the one they used in a 4-2 victory against the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday.

4 thoughts on “Stars Daily October 12: The Dallas Stars and the quest for 105”

I can’t imagine that 8 defensemen on the NHL roster is a good idea long-term. Johns has been shaky so far. Hamhuis is missing a couple starts due to injury and Honka has looked good in his place. Honka needs to be top-6 at least. Who moves out of the top-6? Looking into your crystal ball, what do see come January? How about after the trade deadline?

It’s interesting with the eight they have this year, because it’s really seven and Greg Pateryn. That pecking order has been well established and Pateryn is more or less a practice player and filling a roster spot until an injury.

Honka seems to be tailoring his game to the whatever you do don’t make a mistake so he can
stay in the lineup, do you think this is a function of coaching, his own idea so he stays on the
team or a combination of both? I really feel like he is playing down relative to his offensive skill
set, he hasn’t really done much offensively like I expected.

I think it’s more of a fact that Honka has been so sheltered in his use that we haven’t seen as many opportunities for him to take over offensively. I imagine he’ll get more ice time on Saturday vs. Colorado, should be something to watch.